Willie Boy Sparknotes

“Willie Boy” by Harry Lawton is the western storytelling of the dramatic actions that took place with the Willie and Carlota adventure. The book chronicles the events that took place within the wild love story. The book being one of the first publications of the story had a great authoritative grasp on the incidents that took place within the story. This telling of the story set the foundations for the desert Indian people. This publication shed light on Native Americans in the local area, although being both overhanging dark clouds and the first authoritative voice of the people. This story was a gateway opener for Native Americans to find truth and share their own culture with the world. After the book was published many retellings and revisions

have been made in the Willie Boy and Carlota love story to give many different points of view.

The Willie Boy and Carlota episodic occurred in 1909 in the Mojave, Coachella, and San Bernardino valleys. The major focus of the story sets within the San Bernardino National Forest in the mountain topography. The people involved included Willie Boy and Carlota, who were long related Paiute-Chemehuevi Native Americans who found themselves belonging in a unfavorable love situation. The Novel by Lawton depicted Willie as being a reckless Indian and Carlota a innocent woman who was kidnapped for the love cravings of Willie. There were a few tribal members involved in the love fatality including Carlotas father. Other characters include the town's sheriff and the sheriff's posse. The overarching story tells of two individuals who fell in love but were too closely related to be together. It’s a classic man hunt story that records the chase of Willie Boy, Carlota, and the posse. With elements of danger, love, and drama, the story based on true events is a vision in the western genre. The story itself ends in heartbreak, but some argue that reputation as evidence was never proven that the actions of Willie Boy were ever stopped.
The overall thematic expression of Lawton’s retelling of the infamous love disaster is of course that of a western novel.

It’s the gritty west with the common good and bad gut chase. With the hopeless lovers choosing their romance instead of their family. They go on the run due to the fatality their love has caused. it’s the wild west meeting the wild Indians. From the novel the lines that express the western tone are, “ Through the long afternoon they lay behind boulders, guns ready, studying the terrain from their hiding places.” ‘...Meanwhile, Sheriff Wilson’s party turned toward the foothills south of Cabazon, where Billy Mike had last seen Willie Boy. They were forced to abandon their buggy and follow the tracks on foot to One Horse Spring.” These line represent the utter perseverance of the west and the posse’s obsession of seeing justice brought to light. The unexamined and overlooked would not get away with his Indian ways without seeing righteousness the white man’s way. The pioneers of the white men would ensure that the savage were taught a lesson. Also the addition of the physical elements of the valleys, mountains, and rugged terrain adds to the western

genre.
Another retelling of the famed love dramatic is that told by Larry Burgess and James Sandos. Their version proves to be more of a loving tale of two souls made for one another. The story flows as if it were a dreamy melodrama playing out its tunes of love. It deeply cuts at time being stark with readers but finds a way to still have love be the overall theme. “One day he saw his cousin, Carlota, and he wanted her. She looked back at him openly, and they both ran away together.” This sets up the love story and the following lines just stick to the common theme, “Both of their hearts were still relentless.” This retelling proves that “love is hard,” bt in the end happiness will sure find its way home even if the journey is rough.
Another retelling of the story comes from the Cahuilla elder Katherine Siva Saubel.

This retelling is one of hope and survival. She speaks of the story as it is that of a creation story in which Willie Boy symbolizes the continued fighting spirit of the Native Americans. With Willie Boy escaping the white man there is a white light at the end of this telling of the story.”And they say that they never caught him, that he ran away from them, back home again, and that he made it over there,” This telling of the story helps define bravery and hope within the Native American communities. The suffering of losing Carlota prevailed Willie to survive and keep his legacy in secret. This revision of the story has many in common themes with the survival of Native American Culture. The parallels of having strife,”losing Carlota,” and having to survive until escaping the white man is something we are witnessing in our day to day lives as it is within just recent years that Native AMericans have been experiencing a cultural reemergence with the world in their own right. He survived and in a way, is thriving

now.
Another retelling of the epic romance comes from Cliff Trafzer. Trafzers version offers a more realistic and factual telling of the event. With a grounded perspective on the event and a scientific like reasoning on the affairs that took place. This is the more chronicled and detail revision of the story. “However, even though Willie and Carlotta traveled on foot and the trackers on horseback, the Indian trackers never closed the the gap sufficiently to capture Willie and Carlota. In reality, the trackers never got to close to the couple to hear Carlota’s whimpers or to capture them.” This retelling offers more humanized view on the story in which two people fell in love and ran away which spiraled out and had a domino impact on their surroundings.
The final retelling looked at to give a broad view of the Willie Boy and Carlota love story is the art work of Lewis de Soto. His art is reflected upon panels that stretch throughout a desert landscape where Native Americans had once had their living grounds in Joshua Tree. The panels each represent a piece of the story, readers often ignore, the side of Carlota. It gives the greatest point of view of all, from the love and soul partner of Willie Boy. It is gentle with its words and seems uninterested by hurt or dismay from the events that took place in the Willie Boy adventure. “He is free! I see his spirit head to me and again I feel him touch me. We run toward the sun.” This is the greatest romanticized version of the telling of Willie Boy. It offers a heartbreaking ending and allows for a greater onslaught of questions to be asked. Carlota’s presence in this revision also offers an angelic look up Willie and Carlota. In the end we always find our true love i sthe theme that is seen in the retelling.
The emotionally epic charged story of Willie and Carlota is still that of an affliction in today's setting. A modern day Romeo and Juliet that relates to the masses as it focuses on the underdogs of society. A culture pushed to last stepping stones of survival and imprisoned for being different in who they are as a nation. The story itself had consequences for the Paiute-Chemehuevi Native Americans as it depicted them as savages and their lives were controlled by the government from then on. But the fact that this publication was put forth for the general audience made a statement for Native Americans. It allowed them to have a way into the mainstream and have a distinct voice in our worldwide connectivity. To this day the public is still receiving retellings of the Willie Boy and Carlota adventure with deeper connections and resonating themes that still endanger our cultures today.